Gluten-free cooking, wellness, nutrition, and living a positively thriving, engaged life

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Monday, September 28, 2009

I realized something the other day, as I was cutting up potatoes and yet another batch of carrots pulled from our garden, something that has been on the edge of my consciousness for a while now but hasn't yet been fully articulated in my mind. Since I began eating gluten free, I have become so much more aware of food - where it comes from, how it is grown, and politics surrounding access to and cultivation of it.

I've become so much more excited about growing my own food, baking and cooking from scratch, and, recently, pickling and canning the harvest. I've also noticed that I'm not alone in this.

I read a fair number of gluten free blogs and have noticed the trend towards a heightened awareness around what one puts in one's mouth. At first thought, this makes sense because those of us who have to eat gluten free are much safer when we eat things we have prepared ourselves, using whole ingredients. If we don't know the source or method of manufacture of a food product, most of us are hesitant to subject our bodies to gluten-roulette or be the guinea pig of the "does this food have gluten" experiment. Thus, as a rule, food prepared by others is always suspect (unless, of course, they know and love us and take good care of our health by keeping the gluten far, far away!).

Delving a little deeper into understanding, I would even go so far as to say that I tend to avoid even non-gluteny ready-made foods now more so than ever if they have unintelligible ingredients. Because, heck, my body needs some TLC and why would I go to such lengths to treat it well by avoiding gluten and then turn around and harm it with chemically-processed anything? That just seems to defeat the purpose. By the way, I learned last night that the sugar substitute Equal is an effective ant-killer because they are attracted to the sweet taste, but the chemicals kill them. What does it do to our bodies then?

But the thing that really dawned on me the other day was this thing called control. This thing called "internal locus of control" has been a favorite topic for many researchers in psychology (and credit needs to be given to Rotter who is often cited as the originator of this concept). In a nutshell, mounds and mounds of research has evidenced that the more control one feels over one's life, the happier, healthier, and generally better off one is. According to this research, some people generally feel they have control over the trajectory of their lives; if they work towards something, they will one day see the positive rewards of their hard work. Others tend to feel that no matter what they do, the world has more control over what happens to them. Those who genuinely believe they control their life experiences are happier and healthier as a whole. This can also be true for situation-specific sense of control. For example, one thing we can all relate to is feeling a sense of control over one's work day. Are you told when to take your breaks? Are you told not only what to do but how to do it? This low-control environment makes for generally unhappy employees while they are at work.

Now imagine you are told you have a disease in which your body's immune system is attacking itself and the best way to cure your symptoms and heal your body is to avoid a protein called gluten that you can't visibly see in some foods (outside of the obvious) or on cook surfaces. And American food manufacturers seem to put it in all sorts of things under all sorts of names and restaurant staff may or may not pay attention to cross contamination or understand what gluten is...

Woah. Suddenly the blissful ignorance of what went into food others made for you feels dangerous and the steps you have to take to understand your illness and eat safely feels overwhelming - and you want control. By taking action and learning as much as you can about food - the one thing that will heal you - you regain a sense of control over a part of your life that feels out of control. And this sense of control over your diet makes coping with the illness much easier.

I remember in my earlier gluten free days, I would "treat" myself to an expensive item I wouldn't normally buy or try a new product each time I went to the grocery store just for the sake of doing it, because I could. I would pick out an expensive cheese or olive oil or I would try a new vegetable or fruit. It was my way of feeling like I could say "yes" to something new or interesting or fun when I had to say "no" to so many of the other products that lined the grocery store shelves. It made me feel more in control of what was in my fridge.

More importantly, though, I became obsessed with reading about celiac disease, gluten free cooking, and food in general. At first it was intimidating, but it quickly felt freeing; knowledge removed the feeling of suffocation and enabled me to act. Now that Ben and I grow some of our vegetables, get almost all of the rest of our fruit and vegetables directly from the farmer who grows them, cook the majority of our meals at home from scratch, take care to pay attention to stainability in food production, and have begun canning and preserving, I feel in control of the food that I eat and, as a result, in control over my health.

I have never felt so good.

This is the cake I made for Ben's birthday this year (less fancy than the one I made last year, but still totally delicious). It's a cake his mom used to make and I adapted it to make it gluten free! We served it topped with real whipped cream, but you could certainly frost it if you like (cream cheese frosting would probably be delicious with this). I made the cake again in cupcake form this past weekend...but I would recommend sticking to the cake version unless you are able to make 16 cupcakes at a time. I only have a 12-muffin tin and had a bit of batter leftover, even after over-filling the wells. As you can see, the cake is very moist and stays that way for quite a few days in the fridge!

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

I want you all to know we have not fallen off the face of the Earth. We have, in fact, gotten closer to the Earth.

We’ve moved, that is. Down from the 9th floor of a downtown apartment tower to a house.

A home.

A home in a quaint little neighborhood with parks nearby, bike lanes aplenty, and a farmer’s market within a mile. We couldn’t be more ecstatic. Ben has a painting studio, each cat has a room of one’s own (seriously, we joked there were enough rooms for one cat per room and they indeed each claimed a room), and I have a kitchen that functions! Best of all, the ground is right where it should be, just outside the windows, waiting for us to plant in the spring. It’s our own space to eat dinner in the backyard and build a fire pit and plant as many fruit trees as we see fit.

We’re in heaven, ironically, now that we are closer to the earth.

From our container garden, which has now exploded onto our yard, we've harvested some of our figs and our carrots keep on coming!

And, I have been cooking and baking and taking pictures, but instead of posting them and sharing stories from our lives, I’ve been packing, making decisions, unpacking, making more decisions, making still more decisions, cleaning, making more decisions, and celebrating. Our farm share has been providing us with an abundance of vegetables the past month and we have been using them well.

This is what Ben made us for lunch this past weekend. A colorful Greek salad with vegetables from our farm share - just look at the pretty tri-color cherry tomatoes! They were so sweet and delicious!

Right about now you are probably sick of trying to come up with ways to use all of that zucchini you got from your neighbor, the farmers market, or your own garden. Well, I have a little secret – I honestly could never get tired of zucchini and I am always coming up with new ways to eat it, even if some “new” ways aren’t that different from other ways :)

In the past few weeks we have been blessed with lots of zucchini, including donations from a friend whose garden is exploding in vegetables right now. We made two dishes using shredded zucchini – one inspired by a dish Ben had at a restaurant when he lived in Maryland and another is what I call the lazy version of that dish. I will share with you the lazy version and you can make it the not-lazy version as you wish. I call the lazy version zucchini pie and the not lazy version zucchini cakes. So sweet they are.

Zucchini PieThis is a great base recipe; feel free to add or change what you want. You can add artichoke hearts or kalamata olives or spinach… the options are endless. If you want to be not lazy, shape the mixture into balls and flatten onto a baking sheet and bake in the oven for about 15 minutes, to make cakes. You can fry them up as well and serve with fried eggs!

Place the shredded zucchini into your colander in your sink. Mix in the sea salt and let sit for about 10-15 minutes and allow water to drain. With a big spoon, push down on the zucchini to squeeze out water. Wait a few more minutes (go and check your email or something to distract yourself). Squeeze some more water out. Then mix in the shredded potato, onion, pine nuts, sorghum flour, egg, and seasonings. Then stir in all but a few of the feta chunks.

Spoon the mixture into your pie plate and flatten with the back of your spoon. Sprinkle the almond flour on top. Mash down the remaining feta chunks with a fork and sprinkle over the almond flour.

Bake at 375 for about 40 minutes. You may need to loosely cover with aluminum foil if it begins to brown too much.

Transitioning to the gluten free life? My most helpful posts

About this blog

Any transition can be a struggle, but it can also be an opportunity to grow and flourish. Since discovering I am gluten-intolerant, I have grown as a cook and as a person. In fact, I dare every day to live my life in a way that promotes strength, healing, and, most of all, thriving.